FB: Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference

[Hawks88]

Schools in the CCS that have sports that there aren't enough of to sponsor/have an AQ are all affiliated with the USA South in those sports. I'm not sure if those affiliations are contractual as part of the USAC/CCS split or not. Of course, Belhaven joined in the first season of the CCS so may not have that obligation if it does exist.

[Ron Boerger]

Thx Hickory. Interesting!
Would the CCS mind if one of its members (Belhaven) split allegiances?

Conferences usually insist that if you are a member that you play all sports offered by the conference. 

That average distance definitely would seem enticing for football, but for sports like basketball and men's soccer, there's the other elephant in the room: travel to Colorado College. Obviously, given Colorado College doesn't have football or softball or baseball, that cuts down quite a bit, but that's still some airplane travel that would need to be considered by their administration.

(Man, wouldn't it be nice for the SCAC if Colorado College hadn't dropped football, or considered bringing it back right about now?)

I can't see Belhaven, which fled the ASC for the CCS, suddenly turning back to the SCAC given the lack of a bid and the sudden uncertainty as to ever gaining one.   And that's on top of the cost/travel issues.

And yes, it would have been nice if CC would have entertained the alumni group that wanted to do what a similar group at Whitter just did, though given the need to fly to basically every away game they might have had to raise more money than the $814K the Whitter group did.   Or maybe they would have needed to raise that much in 2008 dollars (which would be around $1.2M today).   CC also cancelled a women's sport at the same time (softball) so the funds needed would be more.   They killed water polo too.

[Hawks88]

McMurry has posted their 2025 schedule some time during the last few days. It shows McMurry coming to Montgomery week 3 to play Huntingdon. I was told a few weeks ago that this was being discussed when Huntingdon-Maryville couldn't come up with a compatible date. I wasn't sure if it would be home or away until seeing this. I don't know if this is a home-and-home or a one year deal.

I don't remember if this has been discussed here but it also shows Nov. 15 as Conference Championship Weekend in Little Rock.

[crufootball]

Is it crazy to think the SCAC teams just let it ride and see what happens?

By that I mean in football while an automatic bid is great TLU and UMHB proved that even with untraditional schedules you can get into the playoffs. In the same way that I wanted the SCAC teams to schedule ASC teams, I truly hope the reverse is true because all of us still need a lot of games. The unfortunate truth is if we both have our own conference in most cases I can all but guarantee I can predict one playoff game early in the tournament.

[Ron Boerger]

The SCAC had an unsuccessful experiment in the '10s with a four-team conference, doing the double round-robin thing the ASC was forced into.  They dissolved it after four years.   Could they talk the five remaining members (including Hendrix next season) into trying that out again, which would mean they'd only need to find two out-of-conference games?  I guess it's possible.  It's going to be TLU and the four dwarves for a while (though Centenary has potential to improve of the other schools) so TLU might be in the driver's seat. 

Ralph asked about space at St. Thomas - they can't hold soccer matches on-campus so I would think adding football could be a problem.  The only athletic facilities they house at the school are basketball/volleyball.  They can't even host tennis matches.

[crufootball]

The SCAC had an unsuccessful experiment in the '10s with a four-team conference, doing the double round-robin thing the ASC was forced into.  They dissolved it after four years.   Could they talk the five remaining members (including Hendrix next season) into trying that out again, which would mean they'd only need to find two out-of-conference games?  I guess it's possible.  It's going to be TLU and the four dwarves for a while (though Centenary has potential to improve of the other schools) so TLU might be in the driver's seat. 

Ralph asked about space at St. Thomas - they can't hold soccer matches on-campus so I would think adding football could be a problem.  The only athletic facilities they house at the school are basketball/volleyball.  They can't even host tennis matches.

But even in that time period TLU did make the playoffs in 2014 and produced one of the most memorable 24 hour football games ever.

I realize it probably is a long shot and something the SCAC wouldn't do as option A but with 12 bids your chances are a lot better, especially if the SCAC and ASC could work something out to all get 2-4 games out of each other.

[The Third Division]

I think affiliates count towards an AQ...... provided I'm reading this article from Pat Coleman correctly
 
https://www.d3sports.com/notables/2022/01/d3-reduces-aq-requirements

It states that it was 7....but reduced to six schools for the AQ.

"extending automatic qualification status to essentially any group of.....schools offering a sport"

The question is.....

Can the ASC and the SCAC both move forward with six for 2026?

SCAC:  Austin College, TLU, Centenary, Lyon, Hendrix

ASC:  UMHB, HSU, ETBU, HPU, McMurry, Schriener

Can the SCAC get Trinity or Southwestern to stay instead of moving to the SAA?  Can they get someone from the Sooner Conference to come over?  Louisiana Christian?  Nelson?  Maybe Belhaven?

Can the ASC lure more from the SCAC?  Will Sul Ross return to D3?  Can they get LCU or Nelson?  Belhaven?

If I'm reading the 2023-2024 DIII Manual correctly, it appears the SCAC will have to have 6 football members for two years before they get an AQ?

Taken from: NCAA Publications

So how did the Landmark get their auto bid in their first season? By starting with 7?

[Pat Coleman]

I think affiliates count towards an AQ...... provided I'm reading this article from Pat Coleman correctly
 
https://www.d3sports.com/notables/2022/01/d3-reduces-aq-requirements

It states that it was 7....but reduced to six schools for the AQ.

"extending automatic qualification status to essentially any group of.....schools offering a sport"

The question is.....

Can the ASC and the SCAC both move forward with six for 2026?

SCAC:  Austin College, TLU, Centenary, Lyon, Hendrix

ASC:  UMHB, HSU, ETBU, HPU, McMurry, Schriener

Can the SCAC get Trinity or Southwestern to stay instead of moving to the SAA?  Can they get someone from the Sooner Conference to come over?  Louisiana Christian?  Nelson?  Maybe Belhaven?

Can the ASC lure more from the SCAC?  Will Sul Ross return to D3?  Can they get LCU or Nelson?  Belhaven?

If I'm reading the 2023-2024 DIII Manual correctly, it appears the SCAC will have to have 6 football members for two years before they get an AQ?

Taken from: NCAA Publications

So how did the Landmark get their auto bid in their first season? By starting with 7?

The Landmark had six full members sponsoring football in their first season. Keystone as an affiliate did not factor in because there were six core members already sponsoring the sport.

If you are using an affiliate as one of your six, then that triggers the waiting period.

[The Third Division]

Because lyon is an affiliate. Got it.

[The Third Division]

Right now these are the options the SCAC has left in the future. Remember that all options below involve no current or future asc schools leaving.

1. convince 2 football-playing schools outside the SCAC to switch all their athletics to the SCAC for 2026 to get the auto bid then.

2. have one school (core or affiliate) join in 2026, have no one else leave, so they can end their "6-team-2-year-waiting-period" in 2027.

3. convince any of its non-football playing members to add football so it can likely start varsity football and get an auto bid in 2027. (Colorado College, Concordia (TX), Dallas, Ozarks or St. Thomas (TX))

[Inkblot]

Schools in the CCS that have sports that there aren't enough of to sponsor/have an AQ are all affiliated with the USA South in those sports. I'm not sure if those affiliations are contractual as part of the USAC/CCS split or not. Of course, Belhaven joined in the first season of the CCS so may not have that obligation if it does exist.

Belhaven was scheduled to join the USA South before the split was announced.

[Ron Boerger]

Starting to see schools dump D1 for D3 (House is probably a big part of that) with St Francis (PA) being the latest to announce.  Wonder if any of the D1 barely-hangers on in this part of the country would consider it.

[Ralph Turner]

None that I see...
Houston Christian?
Incarnate Word?

Or D2?
St Edward's?
St Mary's?

Doubt any will move.

[Crubacker]

Hard to imagine a school transitioning from D1 to D3.